


The Big Heat, a Mystrade Mystery

by Ghislainem70



Series: Ultraverse [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alpha/Alpha, M/M, Mystery, Omegaverse, Thriller, case!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:18:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2140320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade faces obstacles every step of the way in a series of baffling murders in London. Then Mycroft Holmes shows up.  A hardboiled thriller inspired by the film and novel, "The Big Sleep."<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade heard a distant voice, familiar as his own mother's, echoing in this large space, but the words weren't coming in clear. The tile and steel and fluorescent lighting here were long past hurting his tired eyes, the acrid sting of antiseptic and ammonia mingled familiarly with the putrid stenches of death, long past offending his nostrils.

Even the lingering whiff of something exotic, something beautiful, an omega scent and maybe more than that, couldn't bring him back. He was spinning slowly, as in dreams, and a vision of purple, green, cream and splashes of a sort of brownish mauve enveloped him. The colours came into sharper focus, as he had been afraid they would.

It was the horrid, florid chintz that his ex-wife had draped their bedroom in, three months before leaving him for good. His inability to articulate a single word of praise for this endeavor, what she had said in freezing tones had been "making an effort," had been the nail in the coffin of their failed marriage.

"Detective Inspector."

Lestrade finally snapped himself into focus. The colours weren't going away, though. They were vividly present in the corpse on the steel trolley in front of him. Purple. Green. Cream. Brownish-mauve. The colours of livor mortis, and the more violent colours of strangulation. He hadn't told his ex that the new bedroom upholstery and draperies were an almost precise match for the colours he routinely saw at murder scenes and in the morgue.

And she had accused him of turning heartless.

The medical examiner was eyeing him with patient understanding. There was no describing it to anybody who hadn't lived it for year after year. Lestrade reached in his overcoat and felt for his cigarettes. In a minute, he'd be going outside, where it was raining, and he would let the smoke flush out these repellent odours. Even the exotic one that he might want a little more of.

"You're joking, right?" Lestrade said.

The medical examiner, a rumpled sort with a twitchy eye and a steady hand, nodded ironically. "Like I said. It was already done and dusted by before I got in. 'Cause of death: broken neck and asyphyxia. Manner of death: Suicide.' Signed by Dr Throckmorton."

"Suicide," Lestrade repeated flatly, eyeing the ligature marks at the wrists and ankles. The woman had been found hanging from the first story balcony in a period mansion in Holland Park, her wrists bound behind her back and her ankles bound too.

"I suppose this Dr. Throckmorton -- whoever the hell he is -- also explains how this woman, an omega ultra, no less, she would have been pampered and guarded -- was supposed to have climbed over the railing with her feet bound. Or how she tied her own wrists behind her back--"

"It's not completely unprecendented to find. . . " the medical examiner said vaguely.

Lestrade now recalled he was named Thompson. The man didn't even try to finish the sentence.

"In double knots, Thompson."

His mobile rang. It was his Super. The gist of it was, he was to leave this one alone. Suicide, open and shut. The Yard had better things for him to do, his Super was saying. There was always another body.

He turned away from the mottled cream-and-purple corpse of the hanged girl, turned away from the vision of those bruise-coloured draperies hung by his ex, still seeming to surround him with suffocating closeness. He shoved the mobile back in his pocket and took out his cigarettes and lighter instead. As always, they felt good in his hand. And he needed something to feel good.

He pushed through the double doors past a silent team of white coats and walked into the hard grey rain.

"Double knots, Thompson," he shot over his shoulder as the doors swung shut behind him.

He lit a cigarette, dragged in the smoke, and went to go find the next body.

* * *

"I'd ordinarily be surprised if Lestrade just left it, even at my direction," Detective Superintendent Nigel Funish declared sharply. "He's a strong, steady Alpha. It's what's gotten him this far. He sticks with things. But he's been through a bit of a rough patch. Divorce, you know . . . these things can take the fight out of an Alpha. Still, I expect he'll bounce back. He's a good man."

Furnish eyed the bottle of brandy on his credenza. It was dry work dealing with Mycroft Holmes.

He reached for it, grabbed two snifters, but Mycroft Holmes just narrowed his eyes, stood, and retrieved his umbrella. The meeting (audience, Furnish thought, but didn't like to think too hard about why) was over.

"I thought I was to have your assurance that Lestrade would indeed 'just leave it.' That is what is required. Mind that my requirements are met."

"Of course, Holmes. All I meant was, Lestrade will follow my orders on this one. The case is closed. I assume you've already taken custody of the body."

"Let's not speak of the body," Mycroft said. "And I have no idea where you formed the notion that I was at all interested in gossiping about your officer's personal life. Particularly as he is a 'good man.' Now if, on the other hand, you wished to gossip about a bad man. . . "

Furnish gaped at Mycroft and took a swig of brandy. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Holmes," he managed.

Mycroft nodded. "That's just as well," he said gently, and departed down the corridors of what passed for power in New Scotland Yard.

* * *

The new body was even sadder than the one he had left at the morgue. An exceedingly elderly woman looking to be a hundred years of age had been found dead on a park bench in Queen's Square. Shopkeepers in the posh little streets around the square were looking discreetly out their windows, obviously confused whether to hope that the presence of a corpse in the street would either drive away, or attract custom.

"I can't credit it," he said to Donovan. "She's dressed up like, like --" he swallowed the words. He didn't like to speak ill of the dead.

The woman was wearing in an expensive-looking scrap of a dress, the sort of little thing that looked like more than half had been chopped off with scissors, leaving what on a living woman would have been the best bits exposed. Donovan turned over the label of the dress with gloved fingertips.

"Alexander McQueen," she announced disbelievingly. A constable was holding an umbrella over the body to keep the rain off, and in that small space the woman's scent had gathered. Something in it reminded him of the poor woman in the morgue. Omega, and more than omega, but fading fast.

He took out a scent packet and handed it to Donovan, who efficiently swabbed the body where the omega scent was strongest. Lestrade pulled on a pheromone mask out of habit. Donovan, a beta, was usually proof against most pheromone traces but even she seemed riveted.

"Sir," she stammered, gripping the swab and inhaling deep, "its, she's . . . was an ultra. I think."

"Go fetch a mask, then," Lestrade said. "She was out in this rain for hours. Maybe all night. I'll get the packet to the morgue." He didn't know why he felt compelled to take it but without thinking the packet was already in his pocket. He pulled a lock of hair away from the woman's face. The hair was luxuriantly glossy, abundant, and blonde, maybe freshly-dyed. But not a wig, he realised with shock. He had seen more than his fair share of elderly dead, and they were usually more or less balding, men and women, Alpha and omega, past the age of 80. Her eyes were heavily made up, and the makeup was running unpleasantly in black rivulets down her face and settling in the creases of her ancient skin.

"Donovan, ask around these shops. Someone had to have seen her sitting here. She's quite a sight, and before the rain I figure they would have smelled her for a mile. I think you're right. I think she was an ultra."

They both looked down at the woman, astonished. Ultras rarely left their houses without heavy guard. Especially the elderly ones. Even their age-dampened scent was many, many times stronger than ordinary omegas. Anything could happen. There were secure luxury retirement villas built like fortresses, just for ultras. Almost without exception, an ultra's breeding contract earned them enough to live in wealth and security for a lifetime.

Lestrade caught the glint of metal at the woman's frail ankle. He reached down and unfastened it gently. It was a golden anklet. He was frustrated at the driving rain, it was impossible to examine the thing properly here. He was about to step into the shelter of a nearby shop when an unmarked white van pulled up. It splashed rain from the gutter on his coat. He put the anklet in his pocket.

A white-coated team emerged, efficiently zipped the corpse into a body bag and bundled her into the back of the van.

"Hang on, you're not from the Medical Examiner -- who the hell are you," he shouted. The van's wheels threw up more filthy rainwater as it screeched off at high speed. "Bloody hell!"

Donovan watched the van disappear around the corner. "Sir-- what just happened?"

"I don't know, but I think it happened to me once already today."

"Sir?"

"Carry on, Donovan. Report on my desk by five o'clock." He marched back toward his car. The dirty water streamed from his coat as he strode, spun around and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. His cop's senses caught a slight movement at the edge of his vision. The CCTV camera on the corner moved. He took a few slow steps. The one across the street moved too.

He gave a short laugh. Somebody was playing a little game with Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade of the Metropolitan Police. It felt like that someone might be his own Superintendent, who had warned him off this morning's case. Maybe, he thought, people figured he was past it.

He slammed the door of his car and sat in the cocoon of temporary silence, thinking about the white coats at the morgue as he was leaving the hanged girl this morning, the white coats that took the body from Queen Square just now. He smoked. He listened to the rain patter the roof, watching it run in sheets down the windshield, melting the murder scene at Queen Square into a kaleidoscope of shimmering grey and green.

After a while, he spun his car around and headed for Baker Street.

* * *

"I mean it, Sherlock."

John Watson's voice was clearly audible through the closed door of 221b. Sherlock Holmes had become an indispensible resource for Lestrade in solving London's most baffling crimes. Until the advent of Sherlock's new bondmate, John Watson, invalided Army doctor (which description was deceptive, as Lestrade had already learned -- John had killed a man for Sherlock, with a knife, within twenty-four hours of meeting him), he had been proud of the fact that he was in turn an indispensible resource for Sherlock, keeping him somewhat grounded, and sometimes even safe.

He was the only Yard officer that would work with Sherlock at all. Everyone else thought he was utterly mad to work in close quarters with an omega ultra. But a state-of-the-art pheromone mask, abundant self-control, and Sherlock's own masking cocktail had made it work for both of them when no one else had believed that it was even possible. If he had ever had a moment's temptation around Sherlock Holmes from scanty whiffs of his rarifed, impossibly erotic ultra scent that had the power to drive any Alpha on the planet mad with desire, he had always managed to keep it to himself. And whatever it was, he kept it locked down deep.

He had thought they were a team. Not any more, apparently.

"I'm sorry, Lestrade, but that's the way it is," Sherlock was saying through the closed door. "I'm not sure when I'll be leaving the flat again. You don't expect . . . details?"

"No. He doesn't," John said. In the end, Lestrade got them to agree that he could email Sherlock the files.

"I hope you're not under any time pressure," John said.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 

Lestrade trudged back to his office at the Yard. Everyone else was gone now. The floor was mostly dark.

So Lestrade was surprised to find a worker in his office with the lights out except for his desk lamp, which was casting long shadows against the wall. Lestrade switched on the overhead lights.

"Hey, leave that -- it's, ah--- just leave it," he said. The lamp had been his dad's. Dad had been a Yarder too.

The man turned. "Sorry. Just switching out the old light bulbs. New energy policy. Everyone got a memo."

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "Well, hurry it up then, I've still got cases to work, even if nobody else around here does."

He could hear his ex in his head, huffing at that, and shut her out. That part of life was finished. He had no idea what came next, but it felt like the two dead omega ultras were the start. Whatever that meant.

He switched on his computer and crossed his fingers. He was rewarded. Donovan had run prints on the dead ultra from Queen's Square and scanned them from the scene. The victim in Queen's Square was named Natalia Marinisky.

She was Russian, some kind of scholar on internship at the British Museum. That alone was enough to tell Lestrade that he had to have been mistaken. She couldn't have been an ultra, and her papers informed him that indeed, she wasn't.

She wasn't even an omega. She was, or had been, a beta. And she was thirty-four years old. Address: John Street, Bloomsbury. Lestrade grunted, squinting at the screen. These field prints could be unreliable. But this body hadn't made it to the morgue, and he wasn't getting another chance.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to talk himself into another round tonight. He reached for his still-sodden coat and something dropped from the pocket, catching the light. It was the anklet from the woman's body. He reached for the desk lamp to shine a light on it. The lamp collapsed.

"Fuck," he swore. The idiot had broken it. Ten years it had shone a light over his desk. He blinked, and picked at the pieces, almost ready to hurl them against the wall when something lodged in the base caught his eye. Something that shouldn't be there.

"Come to Papa," he mouthed silently. It was an electronic bug, tiny, new, and looking to be state-of-the art. Better even that what they had at the Yard.

He leaned back, looked around the office to see if there was a corresponding webcam. He thought it looked like there was a little shadow in the air duct where there shouldn't be, and the marks of fingers in the dust of the grille. He remembered the worker he had interrupted. He hadn't had time to cover his tracks.

He left the webcam and the bug where they were, then shut the door and decided he was definitely up for round two.

* * *

The house in John Street was a Georgian hulk, six floors of warm, weathered brick, easily worth 4 million pounds. There was light behind the curtains in one of the upper floors and a dark saloon car parked in front. He touched the hood. It was warm. He rang the bell.

A broad-shouldered Alpha manservant with a granite jaw and eyes like black pebbles stared out at him.

"No one home," the man said. Russian. Lestrade figured there were tattoos under his suit.

"Then I'll just look around," Lestrade said, flashing his badge and pushing inside. Russians, in his experience, didn't insist on niceties like search warrants.

The manservant followed him. Lestrade ascertained that his name was Anatoly. "So. Anatoly. Natalia Marinisky. When was the last time you saw her?"

"Yesterday morning. She went to Museum. For her work. But there was party after. At the Embassy."

"She didn't come back?"

"No."

"Aren't you worried?"

"I don't work for her," the man snapped. "Natalia is beta."

Lestrade dangled the golden anklet in front of the man's eyes. They followed without a flicker. "This hers?"

"Maybe," the man admitted. "Is something happen to Natalia?"

"Maybe." Lestrade heard a creak on the floorboards above. "These old houses," Lestrade said. "Can't keep a secret. Somebody's up there. You going to tell me who it is?"

The man clenched his mouth tightly and said nothing. He stood in front of the staircase to bar Lestrade's way.  "This private house," he said desperately. He was starting to sweat.

"Let's just wait here while I call for that warrant, then. And about ten of my other friends from the Yard. Sound good for you?"

He pulled out his mobile and made a show of making the call. "Somebody wake up the duty judge," he said loudly. "I need a search warrant. 10 John Street."

"Don't be rash," a plummy voice ordered from above. A pair of polished oxfords gleamed on the stair, and then a pair of long suit-clad legs stepped down into the light. He moved elegantly, Lestrade noticed. An umbrella swung at his side as he descended. The man who emerged was tall, with dark reddish hair, pale and dignified but with an intelligent and dangerous gleam in his eye. A familiar gleam, it reminded him of someone. . . as did his Alpha scent.

He hadn't ever met this man before but the scent was already getting under his skin. He grinned fiercely, Alpha to Alpha.

"I never am," he retorted. "And I'm making the call."

"Do you want to protect Sherlock Holmes?" He pulled up at that. He muttered, "Sorry, My Lord. I'm not requesting a warrant at this time.  I'm sure my Super. . . sorry."

He turned to the arrogant Alpha.  "I'm Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade. Scotland Yard. I figure you know that, if you're bringing up Sherlock Holmes. I don't believe you mentioned your name."

The man smiled serenely and looked him up and down. It felt as if he were being appraised, which got his blood up. Lestrade wasn't sure that his arrogance wasn't making him want to take a swing. He was past dead tired and whatever passed for his patience and self-control was long gone. He prided himself on it, but he was still an Alpha.

"Mycroft Holmes. I am Sherlock's elder brother. Surely he's mentioned me?"

Lestrade searched his memory. "No. But then again, he's not much on talking about his personal life. In fact, I don't think he'd appreciate me saying that much."

"I didn't ask you to," Mycroft said tartly. "And I don't require instruction from strangers as to how to deal with my brother and his. . . proclivities."

"Then you definitely don't need me. I've got my duties to be about. I figure you must know this Natalia Marinisky, since you're here. Can you tell me anything about her?"

Mycroft stared at him, more appraisal, more weighing.

"Look, if it's got anything at all to do with Sherlock Holmes, especially danger to Sherlock, there isn't anyone at the Yard who would do more for him than I would. So suit yourself, but I need you to answer my question. This woman was found dead today, and now I find you in her house. Unless you --"

Mycroft frowned. "No. I don't live here. And I didn't know her, although her work had . . . come to my attention." 

"Her work?"

"An international committee on repatriating stolen antiquities. She was an expert on Priam's Treasure."

"You'll have to fill me in. A Yard homicide detective doesn't have much time to get up on antiquities. Although we have a team for that."

"Priam's Treasure is a horde of ancient gold artifacts that were looted by Heinrich Schliemann from Turkey in 1873, at the site of ancient Troy. The Russians then looted the treasure from Germany after World War II. She was working to keep the treasure in Russia."

"Would anyone have wished to harm her because of her position?"

"Possibly. There are Turkish nationalists who are quite fanatical on the topic. The Germans can also be. . . difficult." Lestrade couldn't help admiring Mycroft's apparent sang-froid in the face of these international threats. "But she had a powerful protector, and he is here in London. This is his house."

"Who is this protector?"

"Viktor Antonov. He is a minister for mining in Siberia. Diamond mines, specifically, although there are other lucrative mineral assets. Anotonov is a person in whom I take. . . an interest."

"Wait -- but Antonov -- that's the man that Sherlock told me. . . he told me that his mating contract had been sold to a man by that name."

"Did he?" Mycroft was visibly suprised. "That is private Holmes family business."

"Your brother doesn't talk much about his personal life, like I said. But he trusts me," he said shortly. He was getting tired of the run around. "It might be easier all around if you did, too. I don't think this Antonov did a very good job of protecting Natalia. She's missing, and a dead woman about a hundred years of age was found wearing her anklet in Queen's Square today. And strangely, the dead woman's fingerprints match Natalia's. I haven't figured that one out yet. It's got to be a mistake."

"Come with me," Mycroft said, and Lestrade followed him to what turned out to be a huge greenhouse conservatory with masses of hothouse plants like a jungle transported from the Amazon to the heart of London. It was oppressively hot. The only cool things in the room were an aquamarine swimming pool, and Mycroft Holmes.

* * *

"This room is safe," Mycroft said, and sat on one of the cushioned lounge chairs. Lestrade paused, trying to decide if he was even going to stay. He had other things he could be doing right now, searching the house, questioning the manservant.

He pulled out a cigarette, and Mycroft reached up and suavely held a silver lighter out to light him. He regarded Mycroft's long fingers holding the lighter, a little too close to his lips. He blew smoke to cover his confusion.

"Safe from what?"

"From prying eyes and ears."

Lestrade nodded. "And you would know, wouldn't you?" He was thinking about the man in his office, the bug and the webcam. He had thought the man had just been planting them. But maybe they had been there before. Had this Mycroft Holmes been spying on him?

Mycroft looked inscrutably back and dragged on his own cigarette, but didn't answer. They were much more expensive than Lestrade's, and he apprecated the aroma.

Also, it was helping mask Mycroft's Alpha scent. Unlike his brother, Mycroft Holmes did not wear a masking spray and it seemed clear that he didn't take suppressants. Not that that mattered. He was an Alpha himself. Omegas were his orientation, omegas of the female permutation. Whatever little undercurrent he had ever felt with Sherlock was an abberation. No confusion here.

"My brother has angered Antonov," Mycroft said.

"Sure, he's with that John Watson now. He jilted Antonov. That's crystal clear. And with ultra contracts being what they are--"

"-- He's not going away unsatisfied."

"He wants the big heat."

'The big heat' was street slang for heat with an omega ultra, reputed to be the most deliriously erotic heat that an Alpha could experience. But ultras were one in a million, reserved only for those privileged Alphas who could afford to buy the rarest and very best. "You mean he's going to kidnap Sherlock? Do you have any proof? We'll get him protection, all you have to do is --"

"No, I don't think he'll kidnap Sherlock. Sherlock is with John now. He's. . . "

"He's bonded now. I guess it's, ah, pointless anyway. For Antonov."

Lestrade knew the score. Attempts were sometimes made to abduct ultras from their bondmates. It always ended badly, usually with death. Just as ultras had a uniquely powerful pheromone signature, they also bonded more powerfully than other omegas with their Alphas. Any attempt to break that bond resulted in death for the ultra, and sometimes even their Alpha. They looked away from each other uncomfortably.

Suddenly all this talk of ultras and the big heat was making him sweat. It was shockingly hot in here. Steam was rising from the pool. "So tell me. Are you the one that took the bodies today?"

"I'm not sure I should. Tell you, I mean."

Lestrade moved away, disgusted. Time to go. "Your brother keeps things from me too, but don't think that means I'll let you get away with it." He ground his cigarette out. "Call me when you want to tell me what's going on. By then I figure I'll have everything sorted for myself. Sherlock doesn't do all my work, you know. So I won't be needing to hold my breath waiting on your call."

There was a sound of loud voices and heavy footsteps approaching.

"Quick, come here," Mycroft said, pulling his sleeve and yanking him into a large cupboard hung with terrycloth robes and towels.

The small space was positively permeated with Mycroft's dominant scent, and it was making his head spin. He wished he had a mask. He recognized that he hadn't ever felt that way about another Alpha. In fact, he couldnt remember responding quite this way to any omega before either. He bit his lip and tried not to breathe too deeply.

"It's Antonov," Mycroft said. "Don't worry, Detective, Anatoly's my man. He won't tell Antonov we're here."

"You'd better be right," he growled softly, and they both stood frozen in place behind the cupboard doors. The voices came closer. Someone jumped in the pool. Someone else was speaking in Russian. Lestrade forced himself to be calm, but that was difficult because Mycroft's breath was at his throat, lips pressed close as he translated very softly into the shell of his ear.

"He says they have to destroy the chips." 

"Chips?"

"Shhhh. He says, there is a. . . malfunction. They have to try another batch."

There was vigorous, rythmic splashing. Someone was swimming laps. Lestrade counted the laps to avoid whatever he was feeling, which was getting increasingly hard to ignore. With Sherlock being an ultra, maybe there was something unusually potent about his brother's pheromone signature. He was sweating profusely, his heart was pounding as though it wanted to climb up into his throat, and his cock was so hard it hurt. Mycroft, of course, cool as ice in this sweltering place, gave no sign of noticing. He ground his teeth.

Twenty laps.

Mycroft shifted a little, and then Lestrade became aware that Mycroft wasn't as indifferent as he seemed. Just the slightest brush of his trousers against his thigh and there was something long, hot and hard there, making itself felt for just a brief moment before Mycroft drew back, all decorum. His hands, that had still been gripping Lestrade's arm, released him. The place where his fingers had enclosed him felt hot. He closed his eyes. It had been a long, confusing day. He needed to get out of here, make a report, get some sleep.

Get away from this Mycroft Holmes.

Thirty laps.

If he didn't get out of this bloody cupboard, he thought his cock was going to explode. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had any real satisfaction. His cock was aching for it now, of all times, of all places. He would have groaned, but he knew that being found would be dangerous, or worse than dangerous. He bit his lip hard and focused on sufficiently disturbing images from his cases that his cock began to return to something like normal. Still twitching, wanting something, but he was quite used to getting nothing. He would make a point to get out to a red bar soon, mix it up with some betas, maybe. He hadn't the faintest idea how to go about picking up new women, post-divorce, but suddenly it seemed vitally important to figure it out.

Forty laps.

He had to gasp out a breath because he'd been holding it against Mycroft's arrogant Alpha scent, and Mycroft clapped a hand over his mouth to still him. He nearly bit him then.

"Steady," Mycroft whispered in his ear. He kept utterly still, perfectly furious. A reddish haze fell over his eyes in the dim space. Later, he promised himself, when he had a chance, he'd show Mycroft Holmes what he thought of being manhandled like that.

Fifty laps.

There was a sound of someone climbing out of the pool and Lestrade realized that of course, the man would come to the cupboard to get a robe and towel. He wished he had a firearm. He prepared himself for what was coming. But nothing happened.

The footsteps trailed away, the door closed, and all was silent.

Mycroft reached around him and pushed the door open, and Lestrade bolted out. "There's a service entrance at the back. I suggest we take it."

"Right. And then you're coming with me back to the Yard, and you're going to tell me everything."

Mycroft looked both amused and puzzled. "Everything? That would take more than tonight."

Lestrade turned away because his face was burning. Furious. The man was infuriating.

"Allow me," Mycroft said, and led the way to a little door that led out to fresh cold night air. It was a mews behind the house. Lestrade took deep cleansing breaths to push the dominant Alpha scent from his lungs.  "We can't take our cars now, it will draw attention."

They walked and came to a busy street corner in Bloomsbury, where they hailed a cab and climbed in together.

"Where to, gentlemen?"

Lestrade said "New Scotland Yard," at the same time that Mycroft said, "The Turkish Embassy."

"Make up your minds, gents."

They stared each other down, Alpha-style.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three.

 

The Turkish Embassy was dark behind iron gates tipped with spikes. Mycroft produced a key to a side gate. There was a keypad panel inside, and Mycroft pressed a few buttons. Lestrade understood that he was disabling a security system.

He also understood that breaking into a foreign embassy would get him sacked from the Yard. But somehow he didn't particularly care. He wanted to do this. He wanted answers. Maybe he wanted something from Mycroft Holmes.

Inside the security room, there were no guards. He knew what they were going to do, and he started looking at the surveillance video from the night before. Sure enough, there was a party, and a gorgeous blonde girl wearing the same Alexander McQueen dress as the poor dead woman in Queen Square was dancing and flirting outrageously. All the Alpha males and as many betas as could get in range were circling her like wolves. Finally she left with one of the men.

"Victor Antonov," Mycroft said. "And that's Natalia? They're acting like she's an omega in heat. Even an ultra, look, they're going out of their minds over her."

"I'm going to tell you something. I have to be able to trust you. This is a very serious secret, for many reasons."

"If you don't think you can trust me, you'd better not," he retorted hotly. He wasn't accustomed to his honour being doubted, not by anyone. Mycroft sighed.

"I suppose I do trust you. I don't think you appreciate how rare that is. What I have to tell you is that the woman that you found in Queen's Square, also the woman you found hanged in Holland Park, were both victims of a scheme. To create ultras."

Lestrade shook his head. "People have been talking about that since the beginning of time. You can't create an ultra. It's been tried. People have gone to jail. But no one's ever done it. It's impossible."

"Evidently that is true. But this scheme has gotten closer than any other. That woman, Natalia. She really was a beta. And you saw the video. She became an ultra. And that was her body in Queen's Square."

Lestrade was getting angry now. Nothing about this made sense. "Look, I saw the body. She was a hundred-year-old woman if she was a day. Somebody put Natalia's clothes on her and switched her fingerprints. It's some kind of hoax. People play little jokes on the Yard sometimes. Usually it's to do with Jack the Ripper coming back, that sort of thing. I better not find out that you're behind this particular joke."

Mycroft hissed, "It's no joke. And that was Natalia. That's the price of the mutation. It changes the DNA within hours. But it also accelerates aging. In this case, Natalia only lived a single day and a night before she died of old age."

Lestrade was horrified. "She couldn't have done it voluntarily! It's murder. Who did it to her?"

"Antonov."

"And the hanged woman? Does she fit in as well?"

"She was trying to go to hospital. For help. She apparently knew what was coming for her. They killed her before she could go. Poorly planned, as I'm sure you noticed. I'm afraid Antonov lost his temper with her."

Lestrade pocketed the video of Natalia at the last party of her life. From the looks of the video, she had never been happier, or more alive, than during those few short hours as an ultra.

***

They left on foot and took another cab. Lestrade dozed off a little before they'd gone very far.

"Where to?" The cabbie asked.

"Go round Hyde Park until I say stop," Mycroft retorted. Lestrade slept fitfully, occasionally tossing and muttering. Mycroft sat back and observed him. But when his head lolled over, Mycroft reached out and straightened it gently. He liked the feel of Lestrade's skin under his hand. He knew Lestrade would be angry to be handled like this, and so he sat back with his hands under his thighs.

When Lestrade's eyelids fluttered open, Mycroft said loudly, "Scotland Yard," and within minutes the cabbie dropped Lestrade there.

"Why did you tell me all of this, Holmes? I said you can trust me, and you can. But you know I have to make a report, tell my superiors. We have to pursue it. It can't be a secret, these women are dying."

Mycroft looked unsurprised. "I expected as much. If you must, you must. If you can keep my name out of it . . . I'd be grateful."

"I'll do what I can."

Lestrade's car had mysteriously been returned to the Yard. He briefly logged a report, put out a bulletin to detain Antonov and barring his exit from the country, left a message for his Super, and drove home to his flat in Southwark.  There, he fell into bed, not without fantasies -- he could admit that was what they in fact were -- of certain long, elegant hands touching him intimately. He was too tired to fight it, and went to sleep anyway.

* * * 

The next morning he realised that although obviously Mycroft Holmes knew how to find him, he didn't know how to find Mycroft Holmes. He could go through formal channels. But there was a better way.

"We said no, Lestrade." John sounded frantic and exhausted. And he wasn't going to open the door.

"Just an address and phone number. Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock's brother."

After a moment, his mobile buzzed. Sherlock had forwarded the contacts. Also, a message for Lestrade.

_"The women are being murdered because they are experimental subjects of an ultra mutation sheme. The likely perpetrator is Viktor Antonov. Even you won't require my assistance in formulating a motive. There are likely to be more victims. I advise detaining Antonov soonest. SH"_

Lestrade smiled. For once, he was already ahead of Sherlock Holmes. If it was down to his brother Mycroft, he would keep that to himself for now. Mycroft had said to keep his name out of it.

"Thanks, Sherlock," he said through the door, and let himself out into Baker Street.

* * *

"We've nailed Antonov." Mycroft wasn't picking up on the number Sherlock had given him, but Lestrade was pretty sure he'd get the message. Maybe he was even listening in right now. He looked up at the tiny dark spot in the air duct grille and waved cheekily. "He was trying to cross the Channel. He's being held at the Yard. You were right, he had three other women and one man lined up. For experiments. That computer chip he was talking about, we found some on him. Forensics says it sends some kind of waves into the cells. . . . forces a mutation in the DNA. It seems Antonov was testing the most experimental materials on the beta women. He was saving the most promising stuff for the omega man. He looked a lot like Sherlock, I'm sorry to say. Call me back if you want to know more. I kept your name out of it. Just like you asked."

He waited a few minutes for a return call, but Mycroft didn't phone. After a few hours, Lestrade went back to work.  He was ready now to take a crack at interrogating Antonov.

But when he went to the holding cell, the looks on everybody's face told him without words that a bigger fish in the sea had taken Antonov. Antonov was gone.

He stormed back to his office. "Why me?" he yelled at the bug under his broken lamp. "Why the smoke and mirrors?"

He grabbed his coat and pulled out his rumpled note that he had made of Mycroft's address. Belgravia. It figured. As proud and straightlaced as the man himself. He needed taking down a peg.

Or three.

* * *

Mycroft was at home. He certainly didn't look as if he had been working on an international contraband - murder case. As for what he did look like, Lestrade decided he looked like he needed to be taught some lessons, and that he was just the Alpha to do it.

"You weren't just protecting Sherlock," he said without preamble. "Otherwise, why take the bodies away from the morgue? Why take Antonov away from the Yard? It's a clear case of murder and banned ultra gene mutation. He'll go to prison for three lifetimes."

"You think a prison can hold Antonov?"

Lestrade thought about that. The Russian mobs were very powerful, especially in London. And in London prisons. "If they put him up in Wakefield. It's the highest security prison in England. In Western Europe."

"Ah. 'Monster Mansion.' Perhaps. But, better to be certain."

"Where is he?"

"As his victims were Russian nationals, and as Antonov himself is a Russian, we were able to reach certain understandings with our Russian opposites." 

"Right. You handed him over. What did we get in return?"

Mycroft smiled a mephistophelean smile. "You aren't a detective for nothing! I can't tell you that. Something worthwhile. Very worthwhile, I assure you."

Lestrade looked around. They were standing in the front hall, but he saw a fire flickering through an open door. "I have some time. Now that Antonov's gone, and the murder cases are officially closed. Maybe you'll tell me what you can."

And so it was that he found himself in Mycroft Holmes's study, in a very comfortable chair in front of the fire.

"Can you imagine," Mycroft said, "what one could do if one had the powers of an ultra? Powers that could be controlled? Turned on, and off, at will?"

Mycroft poured him a scotch, and it burned smoothly going down. He felt warmth in his belly. Lestrade laughed out loud, scoffing.

"No one would want that. Sherlock told me he had to kill the Alpha that tried to breed him the first time. Being an ultra is a curse, except for the money."

"Yes, because it's uncontrollable."

"And you think you've found a way to control it." 

Mycroft smiled faintly over his own scotch. "Imagine the uses for such powers."

Lestrade tried to imagine. He figured someone like Mycroft Holmes would use such a thing for espionage. The ultimate Mata Hari. "Fortunately, I've never even had a temptation to try for an ultra. Not even your brother, and I've worked closer with him than anybody. Don't know what that says about me." The scotch was giving him a nice little warm buzz. Mycroft was looking rather handsome, he thought, in the firelight.

"I know what that says about you," Mycroft said.

"Yeah? And what is that?" If Mycroft said something smart, he might just have to teach him his place. He had thought that before and failed to do anything about it. This might be the time.

"It means you like to stay in control. I am just the same, you know."

Lestrade thought about that. Control. "Too much control might be too much of a good thing," he said finally, unsure where the words were coming from. They sounded right, though. And he was standing up, and standing over Mycroft. He liked looking down at the man, the long length of him, his face raised up in the firelight and his mouth not far from where he was imagining he might like it to be, soon. Mycroft reached up with one of those long hands, sensitive elegant fingers, similar but so very different than his omega brother's. His hand came to rest on the outline of his cock in his trousers. And that was the moment when he decided that he was done with self-control.

"You're pretty sure of yourself," he observed, not moving Mycroft's hand.

"I'm sure of you," Mycroft retorted, his hand starting to work cleverly with his zips.

"Hold on. You have to promise me something."

"I'm not a great one for promises."

"You'll make this one, or I'm afraid I've got somewhere else to be. Permanently."

"Ah. The Alpha stakes his claim. What sort of promise? I'll see what I can do." Mycroft sounded perfectly cool, but his fingers tightened over his cock, a little taste of hotness to come.

"I want that little camera and bug out of my office. No more snooping on me. If you want to know what's going on with me, just ask."

Mycroft looked amused at this, but at Lestrade's Alpha scowl, he immediately looked properly chastened. "The camera and bug will be gone in the morning," he said carefully.

"And no more bloody snooping."

Mycroft stood up, got up close, and pushed his hard cock against Lestrade's own, so that he would have to face their height difference. Lestrade ignored this maneuver and grabbed Mycroft by the arse to show he meant business, and pulled him in even tighter.

"I can't promise you that. I need to be sure --"

"Sure?"

"Sure you're safe." Mycroft was turning scarlet up to his ears, and so Lestrade leaned in and took an Alpha bite.

"Safe? I can take care of myself."

"Let me take care of you now," Mycroft said seriously.

Lestrade sighed. This wasn't an argument he was sure he really wanted to win after all.

"Then do it," he said.

 

 

 

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading The Big Heat! Your comments and kudos are so helpful and appreciated<3
> 
> G x


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